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Ephesians 4:31-5:2; & Luke 23:33-34a
LEAVING GRUDGMENTALISM AT THE CROSS
It’s said that we all have a double. Here’s mine (Slide 10): David Gordon
of Pittsburgh, Pa. When my oversized glasses & brown (!) hair were the same as
his, this news photo from 1993 was so identical to me that I’d show persons the
picture & say, “You never saw my first wife & daughter, did you?” The picture
was that convincing at the time. --- I know: I’m a trouble-maker.
Over the years, persons have likened my appearance to (Slide 11)
Groucho Marx, (Slide 12) Father Guido Sarducci of 1980’s Saturday Night Live
fame, & (Slide 13) even, yes, Ned Flanders from The Simpsons (again when my
hair was brown)! You didn’t know I had so many doppelgangers, did you!
This is the 25th anniversary season of The Simpsons. Creator of the series &
cartoonist, Matt Groening, presents a positive Christian role model in the
Simpson family’s neighbor, Ned Flanders. Originally, he wasn’t such an
exemplary follower of Jesus, but his faith transformed him & he’s been going on
to perfection ever since. Amen! (Perhaps Matt Groening is a Methodist!) Ned is
the genuine article. Not only would Jesus be proud of him, but Ned displays an
faithful integrity which the viewer finds credible/believable, too.
Granted, Ned drives Homer Simpson crazy. Ned is a good man & that
goodness bothers Homer, who secretly wishes he were that good. Good
behavior, even when done in all modesty & without pretension, can annoy.
Honesty, fairness, mercy, peace aggravate some persons. Jesus surely did!
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Ned Flanders is a long overdue counter-point to the stereotypical flaming
fundamentalist, hypocritical caricature of Christians that the media too often
mockingly portray. Although exaggerated, that portrayal has a basis in reality.
There is hypocrisy in all of us, although we are pained to acknowledge the
fact. I mean, the person donning his/her Sunday best who beats the kids at
home is the real hypocrite. Right!?! So is the choir member who “flips the bird”
while passing some slow driver on the Sure-kill Expressway. There’s also the
normally soft-spoken pillar of the church who’s an inveterate gossip & “really
should be cut some slack because, after all, we all slip at times & make
mistakes.” Those persons are the exceptions, we think. We’re not all hypocrites
quite like them.
We can point fingers at “those” hypocrites, but you & I have our “issues,”
too. Is there someone we haven’t forgiven? Is there someone we felt justified
hurting in retaliation for our injury? Is there someone who emotionally wounded
us years ago & we’re still holding a grudge?
The therapist who leads my clergy group describes this inability to let go as
being “grudgmental.” Combine grudgmentalism with the cultural pastime of
being easily offended (“thin-skinned”) & we have the makings for a volatile
cocktail of vengeful retaliation. What would Jesus do?
We see this grudgmentalism in one another. The sad thing is that most
Christians take it for granted & don’t think twice about not forgiving. We’ve
become so inured/desensitized to it. Persons outside the church see that
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unforgiving attitude in us, too, & remark, “That can’t be the way their Jesus
wants his followers to be, but there are so many church-goers who behave that
way.” What a witness we make! We get blamed for a lot of untrue things, but
this one is real. It’s another reason churches don’t attract persons.
Then, there are the ones who leave church. There are all sorts of reasons
for their leaving. The #1 reason in my experience? We don’t forgive. He
doesn’t forgive the person in the next pew who upset him, so he leaves. You
don’t forgive the pastor for a certain inter-pretation of scripture, & you leave.
The way a committee handled a particular issue wasn’t to her liking, so she
leaves. And, rarely does one address the problem in a healthy relational way,
nor reconcile with the offending party, as Jesus teaches (in Matthew 18:15-22). We
self-ex-communicate. He taught these things for just such occasions – not just for
good reading, not just for Bible study, but to experience it in our hearts & live it!
As a pastor, I wonder how Christ’s message of forgiveness is so ignored by
the souls he’s won, so forgotten by us, so fails to change us. It’s central to our
very identity in Christ. We’ve been forgiven! We expect – even take for granted
– that we’re forgiven & will be forgiven for future wrongs, yet we often fail to
forgive others, ourselves, even God.
Each week in worship, we pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those
who sin against us.” If praying the Lord’s Prayer here is a dead, boring,
meaningless, mindless ritual, it’s because we make it that way & fail to act on it.
The prayer is full of meaning. Apply it to life. Live the forgiveness we pray for.
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Forgiveness, though, is not easy. I don’t mean to imply that it is. For
example, many persons acknowledge their wrongdoing, but lack remorse. That
makes it hard for us to forgive them. Hard, yes, but we still need to forgive.
At other times, persons don’t even know they’re wrong, despite
committing heinous crimes or offensive behavior. I know it sounds incredible.
“How can they not see the error of their ways? It’s so obvious. How out of touch
are they?” Such behavior is not without biblical precedent. The persons who
executed Jesus saw nothing wrong with what they did, even justifiying it. Jesus
recognized as much. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,”
was his prayer for them. His own testimony acknowledges the power of sin to
blind. It’s the same blinding power that says it’s okay for us to not forgive. We
really do need Jesus!
Please note that Jesus did not let two wrongs develop & counsels us to
imitate him. Yes, someone sinned - wrong #1. That doesn’t mean we need to
counter their sin with our own sin – wrong #2. Forgiveness stops the sin cycle.
Working against us is that we live in a society which touts individual rights.
The entitlement cult of the individual – that “I want it when I want it” attitude –
reigns, even if our rights harm someone else. Subsequently, we convince
ourselves that we have a right to seek revenge & not forgive. Our litigious
culture supports the “eye for an eye” mentality. Jesus doesn’t. He opposes it.
Thank God, he’s not alone in that.
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Countless Jews from the Nazi’s concentration camps gave up their
vengeful rights & forgave. Watch their testimonies on You Tube. Gandhi &
millions of Indians gave up their rights to grudgmentalism. Find the movie,
“Gandhi,” on Netflix. Blacks in South Africa gave up the right to unforgiveness
when apartheid ended. Read about the Truth & Justice Commission. Can we,
often with lesser hurts, be so forgiving?
In a moment, you will see two persons: Robin Farnsworth, a nurse; &
Germaine, a friend of Robin’s son, Spencer. Here’s her story. (Play video clip.)
I was on duty as a nurse in the emergency room and it was around three
in the morning, and we got a call that two stabbing victims were coming in to
the ER…. One of them, they said, had no vital signs…. I was assigned to the
room that he was going to be brought into…. They worked on him for about 15
minutes before they pronounced him dead. He had three stab wounds & the
fatal stab wound was to his heart….
When they pulled his wallet out of his jeans, I saw my son’s name in the
wallet. I started saying, “What’s this guy doing with my son’s wallet?” I hadn’t
even bothered to look at the person’s face…. I turned around & walked
towards the stretcher, & the first thing I noticed was a homemade tattoo that a
friend of Spencer’s had given him when he was 15 on his arm…. I knew that
that was my son, Spencer.
(Spencer’s friend, Germaine, was in the ER’s waiting room. He recalls --- “I
heard Spencer’s mother scream when she realized it was her son. It was a
horrible, horrible thing. And I knew it was her. I heard her voice. I knew it was
her. I’ll never forget it.)
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Ms. Farnsworth continues. --- I’m amazed at the people I meet, even
Christians, who really feel that while their circumstances are special, surely God
understands. He can’t expect them to forgive: this violation is so great, or
whatever. And, yeah, there are some horrific things that happen out there to
people that are just horrific…. They have every right to hold that anger &
unforgiveness, but, you know, when we become Christians, we leave those
rights at the cross.1
Christians leave our rights to unforgiveness at the cross. Do we?
In the Name….
Copyright 2014 by G.D.Knerr at Lansdale, Pa. All rights reserved.
Everett J. Worthington, The Power of Forgiveness (Video study #1 – “The Origins of Forgiveness”
9:33-11:35), Brewster, MA: Parclete Press, Inc., 1995.
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